Vulnerable user support: Qustodio review and PC Magazine parental control page

It’s been a while since I reviewed MMGuardian and similar parental control apps. The last time I did this I promised to took at Qustodio, but life got in the way. Now I’m back to the topic, preparing to update one of the tougher chapters in my book - Smartphones for All.

I signed up for Qustodio and quickly ran into some issues with possibly outdated documentation. I say “possibly” because there may be some quirks related to my subscribing with an old test account they gave me. So I’ll get to evaluate their user support too. I’ll put that post out after I get things fixed.

In the meantime I’ve put out a call for feedback on use of “parental control software” to support vulnerable iPhone users of all ages. I’d particularly like to hear from users of Qustodio and MMGuardian with iPhones.

PC Magazine (I remember their glory days!) did a pretty thorough review of Qustodio, through it I found their “parental control and monitoring reviews” stream. The latter is a good general resource, but they should have included MMGuardian.

The Qustodio review makes much of how ‘old’ the Qustodio site looks. I didn’t bother me, but having an ‘old’ looking site can be a marker for weak financials. The review is Android-centric, that makes sense because there are effectively no parental controls with Android. If you want something you need to pay. iOS devices have built in restriction abilities so they get less attention. They still hit most of the key points for an iOS users, but my review will be more extensive.